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Pindemonte, like the best Italian critics, expresses himself very moderately on the subject of the unities. In speaking of that of place, he says" that tragedy ought to be an imitation of truth, and as such the transitions should not be so great as to sin against probabilities, and thereby injure the interest of the action, the latter being the case when we find the persons removed all at once from the palace of the Ptolemies to the promontory of Actium, and this not because the spectators can ever fancy themselves to be either in the former, or the second of those places, but because it shocks the imitation of reality, to see Anthony and Cleopatra carried away in a few minutes from Alexandria to Actium." He denies that the unity of place is necessarily connected, as Voltaire pretends, with the unity of action; "for," says he, "a dramatic action is composed of several occurrences, which may take place some in one spot, and some in another; in Racine's Phedré, for instance, if instead of Theramenes relating the death of Hippolitus, the scene were to change from Theseus court to the sea-shore, and Hippolitus were to perish before the audience, who would say that the unity of action were lost ?" Our author proceeds to discuss the subject of monologues, of which Alfieri has made great use to replace confidants; but, says Pindemonte, the abuse of monologues is an error not less to be avoided than the other. Cannot the action begin to develope itself early, and the essential persons so converse between themselves, as to soon let the spectators into the state of things? This method, adds he, I have endeavoured to adopt, although I have not altogether excluded monologues from my Arminio. To the division in five or three acts he seems to attach little importance; the poet must consult in this the habits and the taste of the public.

Thus, through the whole of his most interesting discourse, our author discusses all the important questions connected with tragic poetry, in a pleasing and unprejudiced tone; without pretensions, without bigotry, without affectation; seeking merely but sincerely after truth, and giving his reasons for his opinions, with honest conviction, but without fanaticism. And this is Pindemonte's character throughout his works.

In his other treatise upon the histrionic art, and theatrical reform, Pindemonte passes in review the French stage, in which he found that outrée declamation, as he calls it, those unnatural contortions and shrieks, which the French critics themselves, among the rest Voltaire and Geoffroi, had censured before him. He does not speak of Talma, probably he had not seen him perform. Proceeding to the Italian stage, he complains of its being in a low condition; a condition which, we are sorry to say, has not sufficiently improved since the date of his remarks.

Italian classic tragedy has, however, a very essential advantage

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over the French, in the superior poetry of its language and in the freedom of its blank verse. Voltaire himself confesses that, "si jamais les Italiens avoient un theatre regulier, je crois qu'ils iraient bien plus loin que nous. Leurs theatres sont mieux entendus, leur langue plus maniable, leurs vers blancs plus aisés à faire, leur nation plus sensible Il leur manque l'encouragement, l'abondance et la paix." Since his time, Alfieri has given the Italians a tragic theatre; but encouragement is still wanting, and Pindemonte therefore recommends the establishment of regular dramatic companies, paid from the national treasury, and which he thinks would be so many nurseries of future great actors. "Perhaps," says, some one of those personages who are placed at the head of affairs will one day accomplish the great and noble undertaking of completely reforming the Italian stage. I do not doubt that one of the first thoughts that would occur to him would be that the performers should receive their salaries from the public treasury, in the same manner as the professors of the universities; and the amount of which would be refunded from the monies paid by the audience. I beg the learned professors who might read this not to sneer, as there is not such a very wide difference between the two pursuits; for a good as well as a false doctrine will produce effects stronger, more immediate, and more universal, when proclaimed from the stage, than if uttered from the chair. The same actors should then remain in the same city and tread the same boards. No one should be admitted among them who had not received a good education, and whose conduct was not respectable. Persons of this sort would not then disdain a profession which would thus form a body in society, and an object of national care." This advice of placing the stage under the control of government, coming from so sensible a man as Pindemonte, may shock the ears of some English reader, but it is well to remark, that the control would not be greater than it is now, when the plays must be approved of by the police, which has a right to suspend the performances, and shut up the theatre. Therefore the question cannot be about the freedom of the stage, but about its support, and the means of raising the performers in their own estimation and that of the public, and of placing them above the dangers of neglect and distress, evils more fatal to talent than the censure itself. If you wish to prepare men for emancipation, you must raise them first in their own estimation and that of others; this is a truth which must be strictly attended to. With similar views, the plan of a society for the formation and direction of a permanent dramatic company at Florence was drawn by several patriotic noblemen, about two years ago, and the list of subscribers soon after published, which contained some of the most respectable names in Tuscany. We are igno

rant whether this society has as yet brought its labours to any thing effectual.

Pindemonte has published a collection of epistles in verse, written at different periods, and addressed some to living friends, and others to several illustrious dead. These epistles are compositions of the elegiac sort; and many happy conceptions, many pathetic touches, are to be found in them. The language is noble, the sentiments natural; if any fault, that of occasional minuteness might be laid to them. They are stamped, as the author observes in his preface, with the character of the times, for they bear the dates of 1800, 1, 2, and 3. That was for Italy, especially for the Venetian states, our author's native country, an epoch of humiliation, bitter regret, and uncertain hope. "Some will ascribe to me, as a fault, my speaking against war; but the poet has a right to look to the inverse face of things, and we of Verona (and he might have added, of all Italy) have had sufficient reason to deplore the late campaigns: our fine city divided between two states, one half to Austria, and the other to the Italian republic, the river Adige forming the boundary; our splendid fortifications, the work of San Micheli, blown up; our domestic losses (such as the military executions, first by the natives against the partisans of the French, and then by the French against the natives, when they stormed the town in 1797)." Many persons," continues Pindemonte, and it is really melancholy to hear such a man obliged to stifle, in some degree, his indignation under such circumstances, and to condescend to make some sort of apology for holding a national language; "many will think it in me a blameable vanity that I should occasionally allude to the conduct I have kept in the late vicissitudes, as if I thereby were blaming those who followed a different path. It is true that I thought myself bound to retire within the shade of obscurity, repeating to myself the famous sentence, habe Bidoas; but I did not, for all this, refuse to render justice to those who remained on the great political stage, and endeavoured to promote the common good, or at least to prevent evil, as much as it was in their power. And I could, if proper motives did not forbid me, mention several of these, and the more willingly, as they are bound to me by the dearest as well as the most sacred ties *"

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Among these epistles, which have been much admired, and have gone through many editions, we shall notice the one to Isotta Landi, the author's sister, who appears a sister worthy of such a brother, if we are to judge from his expressions breathing the most genuine brotherly tenderness: he observes

* Pindemonte's elder brother himself, early embraced the republican cause, and wrote in its favour; he died, however, soon after the French invasion.

what many of us have felt, that a true sister's love is the purest and most soothing sentiment on earth:—

E qual migliore havvi amistà di quella
Di german con germana? Più soave
Dell'amistà che l'uomo ad uom congiunge,
E senza i rischi troppo dolci a un tempo
Dell' amistade che non rade volte

A gentile il congiunge e non sua donna.

With loftier strains, he addresses two epistles to his illustrious townsmen, Fracastoro and Maffei, the boast of Verona, whose statues, with those of Catullus, Vitruvius, Plinius, and others, adorn the forum of that city. He addresses those mute effigies, and asks whether there is any one among the present youth who ever raises his eyes up to them with envy or a desire of emulation.

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Non sostien simulacro; ed un ne aspetta ?

The unaffected modesty of the noble writer prevented him, perhaps, from foreseeing that that vacant place in the Veronese pantheon is reserved for him. And this ought to be a debt of gratitude on the part of the Veronese; for Pindemonte, throughout his works, and especially in these epistles, speaks with the warmest affection of his beautiful Verona. To Maffei he addresses his plaintive lays, about the misfortunes, not only of Verona, but of all Italy. "Oh, what grief thine would be, in beholding our Ausonia stripped of its proudest monuments of the arts, of those statues which, repugnantly and in chains, left the banks of the friendly Tiber, sacred by the accents of Tullius and Maro, where there is not a hill unsung by poets :—

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"But, at least, have those monuments which were rooted, as it were, in the bosom of the earth, been left to us? No! the works of San Micheli, our famed ramparts, the pride of Verona, are

mined, and, with a tremendous crash, hurled to the ground ** All this would, O Maffei *, fill thy eyes with tears, yet I have not spoken of our most severe calamities: all social ties of friendship or blood have been torn asunder by these fatal dissensions and wars, the hospitable board deserted,—and even the nuptial bed. We have seen"

Cader dal volto vero il finto volto,
E quella illusion ch' era più dolce
Che perigliosa, dissiparsi a un tratto:
Qui chi pria dominava, alle straniere
Catene lieto presentar le braccia :
Là chi prima servià, cittadin dirsi,

E un ferreo scettro alzar col pileo in testa:
Mutar suono le voci ; esser ribelle
-All' estranio signor chi al proprio è fido:
Parer bestemmie i nomi augusti e`santi
Di patria e libertà, di leggi e dritti:
Spenta del ver la bella luce, i buoni
Quasi tutti restar taciti e ascosi

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E come accede di bollente vaso

Ove quel ch' é più impuro, alto galleggia,
Nell'Italia infuocata il più vil fango,
Plebeo fosse o Patrizio, andar più in alto:
Perder ricchezza che l'uom guasta, e guasti
Tornar più ancora.

Hear this ye who talk of the benefits conferred upon Italy by the revolutionary adventus; hear this description, torn, as it were, from the heart of this illustrious Italian; a description worthy of Tacitus-a description confirmed by all the authors who witnessed those times-hear it,

E se non piangi di che pianger suoli?

Is our Pindemonte to be blamed if he kept away from this sink of wickedness and folly, out of which it was impossible, even with the best intentions, to come out unstained; if he clung to his beloved obscurity, to his private station, the only post of honour when vice publicly prevails over virtue ?

A tragical event which happened at Paris some years before, furnishes the subject of another epistle; it is addressed to the manes of Alexandra Lubomirski, a young and handsome Polish lady, of one of the most illustrious families of her country, who was guil

Maffei is the author of Verona Illustrata,' as well as of the Merope,' the earliest Italian tragedy worthy of the name.

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